


Miles Apart, Deep In Your Heart

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Living Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8059594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: "Your captain's here," Lindholm said, gesturing his head towards the stands. Nicklas found that no matter how much time he spent on Team Sweden, it was still odd to listen to someone speaking Swedish on the ice. He was too used to the English exchanged around the Verizon center when he was with the Capitals. 
Nicklas glanced over in the direction that Lindholm had indicated to find Alex sitting in the stands in one of his bright red Team Russia sweatshirts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a little thing inspired by [this](http://halvedhab.tumblr.com/post/150471912793/two-different-kinds-of-players) comment of Nicky's and [this](http://macdrouin.tumblr.com/post/150462105178/so-ovechkin-was-literally-creeping-around-intently) picture of Ovi. 
> 
> Title from Yellowcard's "Miles Apart"

Nicklas pushed the door to the house open and stepped inside, dragging his bags in behind him. Once he had cleared the entry way, he nudged the door shut behind him. He made his way into the living room before stopping to look around.

The room was bright with the sunlight streaming in the window, shining through the curtains which hadn't been completely closed when Alex and Nicklas had closed the house up to return to their home countries for the summer, but instead of looking welcoming the room looked bare and unlived in.

The couch didn't have that atrocious blanket that Alex bought thrown over the back of it. It was a stupidly bright colored thing, a mesh of greens and yellows that might been appeasing in a different pattern, that Alex had gotten at some kind of thrift store for four or five dollars. Nicklas complained about it constantly, but it was the softest blanket they owned and whenever he had a particularly bad headache he liked to lay on the couch with it wrapped all around him. There weren't any magazines or books on the table. Usually it was covered in a jumbled mess of Russian and Swedish and English. As much of each others languages as they had picked up over the years, neither of them were actually fluent in all three so they often used them to teach each other their languages. Nicklas had spent so much time listening to Alex talk about the articles in his car magazines that he was pretty sure he could explain the mechanics of one better in Russian than Swedish. There weren't any of the little knick-knacks Alex had a tendency to pick up sitting on the top of the entertainment center. It was usually a mix of things he'd picked up when he got too caught up in something, little snapbands and keychains he'd picked up from stupid arcade machines because he'd let Willy and Latta goad him into wasting money on them, or picked up at small family owned shops around DC, anything from small carved figures to intricately painted model planes. Nicklas was just glad he'd gotten into the habit of giving the stuffed animals and small action figure he picked up to the teammates that had children.

What he found more unsettling then the bareness of the room was the how quiet the house was. Living with Alex meant the house was almost never quiet during the season. When there weren't people over, one of the older guys bringing their kids over for Alex to coo at or Willy and Latta and Burkie over to be teased and fed properly so they didn't have to survive on take out and ketchup, it was Alex stomping around because he never realized how heavy he was walking or humming along with whatever Russian techno song he had playing on his Ipod. Sometimes it was just Alex shouting at Nicklas from somewhere in the house or speaking too loudly when they were in the kitchen cooking together.

As happy as Nicklas was too spend his summer in Sweden with his parents and brother, each year it got harder and harder to spend those three months without Alex.

Standing in their living room after almost two weeks without any contact from Alex, they spent most of their summer talking in some form every day but Team Russian had rules about fraternization during a tournament which made that almost impossible once practice for the World Cup began, Nicklas was feeling their separation more acutely then ever.

He forced himself to push that feeling away and made as much noise as possible as he walked around the house.

It was easy to pretend everything was alright during the day, easy to patter around the house with headphones in his ear as he settled in for the next few days and act as though it wasn't entirely too much space for one person, but that was harder to do when night fell and he found himself alone in a bed made for two. He almost wished he'd stayed in a hotel with the rest of Team Sweden instead of staying here for the few days he would be in DC before the tournament officially began and he had to leave for Toronto.

Something about being in their home alone made Nicklas miss Alex so acutely that he rolled over to pull his phone off the night stand and sent off a quick text message.

_Hope your having fun with Malkin in Pittsburgh. I miss you. jag älskar dig._

* * *

Nicklas was leaning against his stick and talking to Landeskog, comparing notes on the places they'd gone skiing over the summer, as they waited for their turns to practice their shooting when he felt a stick tap against his calf.

Half turning, he raised an eyebrow at Lindholm.

"Your captain's here," Lindholm said, gesturing his head towards the stands. Nicklas found that no matter how much time he spent on Team Sweden, it was still odd to listen to someone speaking Swedish on the ice. He was too used to the English exchanged around the Verizon center when he was with the Capitals.

Nicklas glanced over in the direction that Lindholm had indicated to find Alex sitting in the stands in one of his bright red Team Russia sweatshirts. He was bent over slightly, one finger resting just below his bottom lip, and focused on watching Daniel Sedin as he took shots against Lundqvist.

"Mmm," Nicklas hummed, acknowledging Lindholm's statement but a little unsure what he expected him to say.

"Do you want to go talk to him for a minute? I don't think coach will mind since we're just waiting our turn anyway," Lindholm said.

It'd been a few days since Nicklas had sent him the text telling him he'd missed him and Nicklas wasn't surprised that he hadn't gotten an answer. He hadn't really been expecting one. He knew how much being apart of Team Russia meant to Alex and how seriously Alex took the rules in order to make sure he could continue being apart of it.

"Nope," Nicklas said with a slight shake of his head. "There's no point in bothering him when he's not here for me."

"No?" Landeskog said.

"He's here for all of us. We're playing our first match against Russia. He's just checking out the competition," he explained.

"Yeah, but you're friends aren't you? You don't even want to say hi?"  
  
The whistle sounded to let them know Sedin was done with his shots. Nicklas pushed off to take his spot.

As he did, he said to Lendeskog and Lindholm, "I'll say to him after we've beaten Russia on Sunday."

He could feel Alex's eyes on him as he settled at the line. 

* * *

Nicklas crouched for the face-off, cheeks bitten red from the cold and exertion and the scent of the ice filling his nose.

When he glanced at the ref, his eyes would skim over Alex's face. His face was set in concentration, lips pressed together and eyes sparked with intention.

It was a look that Nicklas was familiar with any a series of different contexts. He'd seen it across the ice when they faced each other during other competitions, he'd seen it when they were out around DC and Alex got it into his mind to do something that Nicklas couldn't talk him out of, and he'd seen it when they were in bed together and Alex decided that the night needed to be entirely about Nicklas.

Nicklas had seen that look on Alex in a million different scenarios, but right now wasn't the time to let himself get caught up in it.

Right now was for hockey and Sweden.

Later, when this tournament was over and they were back in DC together for the regular season, would be for Alex.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed? Below is an end note with some of my thoughts and stuff on the fic. It's a little long, so you can read it for more insight or skip it. 
> 
> 2) This might be described better as a not!fic then a real fic since it's a lot more thought then plot, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> 3) The suggestion that Team Russia wasn't allowed to associate with other teams during tournaments came from another fic I read, but I'm not sure if the author wants their works linked so. I'm not sure if that tidbit's actually true, but if we're being honestly it sounds like a vaguely Russian thing to do.
> 
> 4) Ovi just seems like the kind of person who collects knick-knacks to me? Just something about him gives me the impression that he'd like to collect silly things. He also just seems like the kind of person who would love kids and spoil his teammates all the time. 
> 
> 5) I miss Lats already and the season hadn't even started :(
> 
> 6) Ovi listening to Russian techno comes from [this](http://video.capitals.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=132361) video.
> 
> 7) I used Swedish when Nicky sent his text message in Swedish, but English when team Sweden is speaking swedeish because 1) I don't actually speak Swedish and 2) I use English as "everyone is speaking the same language" rather then the specific language being spoken? I hope that makes sense,


End file.
